Frustrating News:

We received word from Margaret Sales who works at Church Headquarters and is the person responsible for Visa's. She said that the New Zealand Consolute has requested that two of the medical tests I did in March needed to be re-done. I completed these tests yesterday and the Doctor said that there are no issues.

Since the Church pouch only goes to New Zealand once a week on Thursdays and we were planning on entering the MTC on Monday the 6th of June, our mission just got delayed.

I received a call from Brother Poelman who is responsible for all the mission assignments for the Church. He said that we need to re-schedule the start date for our mission. We will now plan on starting our mission on the 6th of July, when we will enter the MTC and will now travel to New Zealand on the 17th of July.

We are of course very frustrated with these events. We had already given our farewell talks in Church and our dear friends had given us a wonderful open house where we said goodby to several dear friends. I also had sold my Tahoe and we were already packed an ready to go.

President Porter (Auckland New Zealand Mission President) called last night and he was concerned as to when Rain and I would be able to serve there. It sounds like he is very anxious for us to be able to serve there. The mission has now been without a Senior Couple for three months, and it will now be four months if we are able to get there in July.

People have told me that there is a reason for these trials. I think the Lord is testing my patience, which Rain says I have none.

I will update this blog once I have something more positive to post.

Our mission call

This is our letter from President Monson telling us of our call.

Rain and I received our call to serve in the Auckland New Zealand Mission Office. Rain (Sister Robertson) will be the Secretary to the Mission President and I will be doing Finance for the Mission Office. This is the mission that we have been praying to receive.

We enter the MTC on Provo on the 8th of June and will be there until the afternoon of the 18th and will fly to New Zealand on the afternoon of the 19th of June. We fly to LA and have about a four hour layover and fly out about 11:00 pm on Friday and arrive in New Zealand Sunday morning at 5:30 am. There is 18 hours difference between SLC and New Zealand.

We are so excited to finally be able to serve a full time mission and are so looking forward to working with all of the you Elder's and Sister Missionaries in that part of the world.